This leaves Red Cross workers, female ambulance drivers, elderly special constables and stretcher-bearers, to me.
One of these—grey-headed man in spectacles—comes up and scrutinises the menu at great length and then enquires What there is to-night? Suppose his sight has been dimmed by time, and offer to read him the list. He looks offended and says No, no, he has read it. Retrieve this error by asserting that I only made the suggestion because the menu seemed to be so illegibly written.
Instant judgment follows, as Scottish lady leans down from elevation beside the urns and says severely that she wrote out those cards and took particular pains to see that they were not illegible.
Decide to abandon the whole question without attempting any explanations whatever.
Brisk interlude follows, time goes by before I know it, and at eleven o'clock Serena suddenly materialises and asks for coffee—as usual—and says that she is so glad I've come back. Can't I take my supper now and come and join her?
Yes, I can. Am entitled to free meal and, after much consideration, select sardines, bread-and-butter, tea and two buns. Inform Serena, on principle, that I do not approve of feminine habit of eating unsuitable food at unseasonable hours whilst working and that I had a proper dinner before I came out.
Serena begs me not to be so grown-up and asks what the meal was. Am obliged to turn the conversation rather quickly, as have just remembered that it was taken in a hurry at a milk-bar and consisted of soup and tinned-salmon sandwich.
What, I ask, has Serena been doing?
Serena groans and says Oh, on Sunday morning there was an air-raid alarm and she was all ready for anything, and started up her car, and then the whole thing petered out. She popped up into the street and saw the Embankment Gardens balloon getting ready to defend England, but as soon as the All Clear was given, it came down again, which Serena thinks denotes slackness on the part of somebody.
She has also been seeing J. L. and would like to talk to me some time, and could she bring him to the flat for a drink one evening?
Yes, certainly—to-morrow if she likes.
Serena sighs, and looks distressed, and says That would be great fun. J. L. wants cheering-up—in fact, he's utterly wretched. He has finished his novel, and it is all about a woman whose husband is a political prisoner in a Concentration Camp and she can't get news of him and she goes on the streets and one of her children is an epileptic and the other one joins a gang and goes to the bad, and in the end this woman gets shot and the children are just left starving in a cellar. J. L. thinks that it is the very best piece of work he's ever done, and his publishers say Yes, it is, but they don't feel sure that anybody is going to want to read it just now, let alone buy it.
They have gone so far as to suggest that what people want is something more like P. G. Wodehouse, and J. L. is greatly upset, not because he does not admire P. G. Wodehouse, but because he feels himself to be so entirely incapable of emulating him.
Serena, rather fortunately, does not enquire whether my views on topical fiction coincide with those of J. L. or those of his publishers, and we proceed to the discussion of wider issues.
What does Serena think of the news?
Well, she doesn't think we're being told much. It's all very well to say our aircraft is always flying about all over Germany and the Siegfried Line, but do we really always return intact without a single casualty? Nor does she understand about Russia.
Russia, according to the news, can't do anything at all. They have masses of oil and masses of grain and probably masses of ammunition as well, but no Russian transport is apparently capable of moving a yard without instantly breaking down, all Russian ports are stiff with ice throughout three-quarters of the year, and no Russian engineers, telephone-operators, engine-drivers, miners or business executives are able at any time to take any constructive action whatsoever.
Serena cannot help feeling that if Russia had signed a pact with us, instead of with Germany, this would all be described quite differently.
She also complains that Nazi aircraft has so far directed all its activities towards the North. Scotland, in the opinion of Serena, always has been rather inclined to think itself the hub of the universe, and this will absolutely clinch it. The Scots will now suppose that the enemy share their own opinion, that Edinburgh is more important than London.
As for the Ministry of Information, Serena is sorry for it. Definitely and absolutely sorry. Look at the things that people have said about it in Parliament, and outside Parliament for that matter, and all the things in the papers! They may have made their mistakes, Serena admits, but the really fatal blunder was to call them Ministry of Information in a war where the one thing that nobody is allowed to have is any information.
Have they, she adds, done anything about me yet?
Nothing whatever.
I am proposing to go there, however, on the strength of a letter of introduction from Uncle A. who stood godfather, some thirty years ago, to the Head of one of the Departments.
He is not, as yet, aware of the privilege in store for him.
Serena hopes that I shall be able to find him, but has heard that the Ministry—situated in London University buildings—is much larger than the British Museum and far less well sign-posted. Moreover, if one asks for anybody, one is always told, firstly, that he has never been there at all; secondly, that he isn't in the department over which he is supposed to be reigning; thirdly, that the department itself is not to be found because it has moved to quite another part of the building and nobody knows where it is, and fourthly, that he left the Ministry altogether ten days ago.
Can quite see that I shall be well advised to allow plenty of time for the projected visit.
Serena's fellow worker, Muriel, appears and asks whether we have heard that the Ritz Hotel has outdistanced all other hotels, which merely advertise Air-Raid Shelter, by featuring elegant announcement outside its portals: Abri du Ritz.
Shall look at it next time I am waiting for a bus in Piccadilly, which is the only occasion on which I am in the least likely to find myself even outside entrance to the Ritz, let alone inside it.
Finish supper and return to my own side of the counter.
Inhabitants of the underworld invariably take on second lease of life towards midnight, and come in search of eggs and bacon—bacon now Off; shepherd's pie all finished; and toad-in-the-hole just crossed off the list. Do the best we can with scrambled eggs, sausages and ham—which also runs low before the night is out.
Scottish tea-dispenser presently gets down from high seat which enables her to deal with urns, and commands, rather than requests me, to take her place.
Do so quite successfully for an hour, when hot-milk tap, for no reason known to me, turns on but declines to turn off and floods the floor, also my own shoes and stockings.
Succeed in turning it off again after some damage and much expenditure of milk.
Professional cashier says Dear, dear, it does seem a waste of milk, doesn't it? and Patricia suggests without enthusiasm that it really ought to be mopped up.
Am in full agreement with both, but feel unreasonably annoyed with them and go home, after mopping-up, inclined to tell myself that I have evidently outlived such powers of usefulness as were ever mine This conviction continues during process of undressing and increases by leaps and bounds when bath-water turns out cold.
(Note: Minor calamities of life apt to assume importance in inverse ratio to advancing hours of the night. Query: Will the black-out in any way affect this state of affairs?)
Kettle in no hurry to boil water for bottle, and go to bed eventually feeling chilly and dejected.
October 31st.—Visit the Ministry of Information, and find vast area of Hall where I am eyed with disfavour by Minor Official in uniform who wishes to know what I want.